Rhee drops out of school group

At the same time, StudentsFirst demonstrated little grass-roots support. The group claims more than 2 million members but gathered a large chunk of those names by circulating online petitions in support of noncontroversial goals, such as “Every Student Deserves to Attend a Great School.” The group’s recent tax filings show it spent $1.7 million to place such petitions on the grass-roots activist site Change.org. Tens of thousands of people signed — and when they did, StudentsFirst collected their email addresses for its membership rolls.

Education reformers who observed StudentsFirst in action also noted that the group developed few ties with local parents, teachers or civic leaders, who are often in the best position to push policy forward and then make sure it’s implemented properly.

“Michelle deserves a lot of credit for shining a national spotlight on the problems in education,” said Marc Porter Magee, the founder and president of education reform group 50CAN. Nonetheless, he said, “I don’t think it’s enough to simply start a conversation at a national level.”

Observers said Rhee also had trouble building ties with natural allies. In Florida, for instance, tension rose in 2012 and spiked even higher last year as StudentsFirst began pushing for a “parent trigger” bill that would give parents the right to seize control of failing public schools. Other groups, such as Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future, had been working on the same issue for a long time. But there was little coordination.

StudentsFirst and the Bush foundation, for instance, each circulated their own petitions in support of parent trigger.

The parent trigger law did not pass and StudentsFirst pulled out of Florida earlier this year.

In her memo to her staff, Rhee claimed credit for helping to enact more than 130 education reform policies nationwide.

Some fellow reformers offered praise for her efforts. “Thanks to Michelle Rhee’s leadership, … more [students] have the opportunity to learn from an effective teacher,” said Patricia Levesque, executive director of the Bush foundation.

But others said many of her successes came in states with legislatures that were already poised to enact the policies, even before she swooped in with high-profile support. The policies Rhee backs are fairly standard across the education reform movement. Lately, StudentsFirst has tried to promote a new concept — requiring states to publish how much taxpayers spend on each school and how well the students there do on standardized tests — but this proposed “return on investment index” has gotten little traction.

Other initiatives have been more about public outreach than actual policy change. During the Olympics, for instance, StudentsFirst released a series of videos that mocked the U.S. education system by comparing public schools to a pudgy and utterly inept athlete. The group also publishes annual State Policy Report Cards.

Rhee first barreled into the public consciousness in 2007 as the hard-charging chancellor of D.C. schools. In short order, she closed two dozen schools, fired hundreds of teachers and principals — including one she terminated in front of a national TV news crew — and appeared on the cover of Time magazine wielding a broom as a symbol of her determination to sweep out incompetence.

More recently, though, her star seemed to have dimmed. Rhee’s book “ Radical,” published early last year, rang up disappointing sales. She failed to gain traction for a series of town hall meetings she billed as a way to transform the education debate.

And in recent months, the spotlight has shifted to new groups such as Students Matter, which funded a landmark lawsuit in California that led to a judge striking down teacher tenure and other job protections embedded in state law. Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown has gotten national publicity for her drive to launch similar lawsuits across the country.

StudentsFirst also took hits by stumbling into controversies that outsiders say could have been avoided if Rhee had taken the time to study local politics and talk with local activists.

Last year, for instance, StudentsFirst was forced to retract a “Reformer of the Year” award it had bestowed on Tennessee state Rep. John Ragan after liberal groups bombarded Rhee with criticism. Ragan was a chief sponsor of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would have prevented school counselors from talking to students about their sexuality.

In Michigan, Rhee worked closely with state Rep. Paul Scott, a social conservative who had deeply angered many voters outside the far right for actions that were perceived as anti-gay. (Among other things, Scott criticized a political rival for taking money from gay-rights organizations — which he called “radical homosexual groups.”) When the teachers union began a drive to recall Scott, StudentsFirst spent at least $210,000 to try to keep him in office. Scott lost.

In Minnesota, meanwhile, leaders of the statewide teachers union couldn’t understand why the local StudentsFirst group kept hammering on the policy of protecting veteran teachers by putting those with the least experience first in line for layoffs. State law does make seniority-based layoffs the default position. But it also allows local districts to negotiate different approaches with their unions. As a result, about 40 percent of districts in Minnesota have policies that don’t rely strictly on seniority, according to Denise Specht, president of the 70,000-member union, which is known as Education Minnesota.

“They came into the state with the premise that things are really bad, everything is broken and we have to fix this,” Specht said. “Do we have work to do? Absolutely. … [But] their national agenda didn’t resonate. It was a top-down agenda being forced into a state that didn’t need it.”

StudentsFirst recently pulled out of Minnesota.

“They went through a steep learning curve,” said Kevin Chavous, a former D.C. councilman who shares much of Rhee’s education reform vision. “No individual’s celebrity is going to immediately translate to major influence in every state. They were beginning to learn that.”

Chavous said he wasn’t surprised that Rhee would step down as CEO. “She has an impatient spirit,” he said. “I think the slow pace of change and reform was always frustrating for her.”

What will Rhee do next? She recently was appointed chairwoman of the board of the St. Hope Public Schools, a charter network founded by her husband. She also joined the board of directors of Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.